that thou acquiesce therein, and art in loving harmony with the truth, thou will be at once
filled with peace; glowing with love, and fortified against offences.
2. It is our place then to see, or seek, or learn, how we must be “meek;” and we are guided
by that which I have just brought forward out of the Scriptures, to find what we are in quest
of. Be attentive then, Beloved, for a little while; it is a weighty matter that is in hand, that
we may be meek; a necessary thing in the adversities of life. But it is not the adverse circum-
stances of this life which are called offences; but mark what “offences” are. A man, for in-
stance, under some hard necessity is weighed down by a press of trouble. That he is weighed
down with a press of trouble, is no offence. By such pressure were even Martyrs pressed,
but not oppressed. Of an offence beware, but of a press of trouble not so much. The last
presseth thee, an offence oppresseth thee. What then is the difference between the two? In
the press of trouble thou didst make ready to maintain patience, to hold fast constancy, not
to abandon faith, not to consent to sin. This if thou maintain, or shall have maintained, the
trouble that presseth thee shall not be thy fall; but that press of trouble shall avail to the same
end as in the oil press, not to destroy the olive, but to extract the oil. In a word, if in this
trouble that presseth thee thou ascribe praise unto God, how useful will the press be to thee,
whereby such oil is pressed out! Under such a press the Apostles sat in chains, and in that
press they sang a hymn to God. What precious oil was this that was pressed and forced out!
Beneath a heavy press did Job sit on the dunghill, without resource, without help, without
substance, without children; full, but of worms only, as far, that is, as concerned the outward
man, but because he too was full of God within, he praised God, and that press was no “of-
fence” to him. Where then was the “offence”? When his wife came to him and said, “Speak
a word against God, and die.”2701 When all had been taken from him by the devil, an Eve
was reserved for the exercised sufferer, not to console but to tempt her husband. See then
where the offence was. She exaggerated his miseries, and her miseries too with his, and
began to persuade him to blaspheme. But he who was “meek,” because “God had taught
him out of His law, and given him rest from the days of adversity;” had “great peace” in his
heart as “loving the law of God, and nothing was an offence to him.” She was an offence,
but not to him. In a word, behold the meek man, behold one taught in the law of God, the
eternal law of God I mean. For that law on tables was not yet given to the Jews in the time
of Job, but in the hearts of the godly there remained still the eternal law, from which that
which was given to the people was copied. Because then by the law of God he had “rest
given him from the days of adversity,” and “had great peace as loving the law of God,” behold
how “meek” he is, and what he answers. Learn hereby what I propose to enquire; who are
the meek. “Thou speakest,” he says, “as one of the foolish women speaketh. If we have re-
ceived good from the hand of the Lord, shall we not bear the evil?”2702
2701 Job ii. 9, Sept.
2702 Job ii. 10, Sept.
744
On the words of the Gospel, Matt. xviii. 7, where we are admonished to beware…